The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a New York-based wire service that serves Jewish newspapers worldwide, launched a scorching four-part series on the Ford Foundation.

Written by investigative reporter Edwin Black, the series, "Funding Hate," alleged that Ford had provided financial support to several Palestinian nongovernmental organizations accused of anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic behavior at the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in late summer 2001.

A Ford spokesman denied the thrust of Black's allegations: "We have seen no indication that our grantees in Durban or elsewhere engaged in anti-Semitic speech or activities."

One month later, after a political onslaught from members of Congress and some prominent Jewish organizations, Ford reversed itself.

In a letter to Jerrold Nadler, a Democratic Congressman from Manhattan's Upper West Side, Susan Berresford, the president of Ford, declared that her institution was "disgusted by the vicious anti-Semitic activity seen at Durban" and that "having reassessed our own information on the Durban Conference...we now recognize that we did not have a complete picture of the activities, organizations and people involved.... We deeply regret that Foundation grantees may have taken part in unacceptable behavior."

Berresford reiterated those sentiments in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, which had published an editorial extolling the JTA series, lashing Ford and, sounding an old conservative refrain, lamenting the existence of "a foundation priesthood funded into perpetuity and insulated from public accountability."

To some extent, the 2003 attack on Ford--the worst crisis to hit the foundation since 1969--could be regarded as an example of the increased political scrutiny that US nonprofits have faced since 9/11.

...deemed to have provided financial or humanitarian support to "terrorist" organizations.

"In the wake of Durban, Black noted, Jewish organizational leaders singled out one Palestinian NGO--the Palestinian Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAW)--for much of the anti-Israel agitation at the conference..."

It's not a surprise. Old man Henry Ford the first, himself, was a hate monger. His newspaper The Dearborn Independent at one time published blatant antisemitic articles. Ford thought Hitler was a great guy, until he realized how much money he could make building bombers that could hit Germany.

The Ford Foundation was originally funded by Ford Motor Company stock from the estates of Henry and (his son) Edsel Ford in 1936. While there are hundreds of exceptionally wealthy foundations that finance leftist groups and causes, Ford leads the way in this regard. Its level of grant awarding is approximately fifteen times the amount of the three largest conservative foundations combined.

Henry Ford II was the son of Edsel and grandson of Henry Ford, and the head of the Ford Motor Company in the postwar era. When he resigned from the Ford Foundation's board of trustees in 1977, he made a statement expressing his profound disgust with the Foundation's drift to the political left. "In effect," he wrote in his resignation letter, "the Foundation is a creature of capitalism, a statement that, I'm sure, would be shocking to many professional staff people in the field of philanthropy. It is hard to discern recognition of this fact in anything the Foundation does. It is even more difficult to find an understanding of this in many of the institutions, particularly the universities, that are the beneficiaries of the Foundation's grant programs." He lamented that Ford was rejecting the very economic system whose abundance made its existence, as well as that of all other philanthropic foundations, possible. Since that time, Ford grants have been directed even more generously towards the anti-capitalist, anti-business enterprises of the political left.

The Ford Foundation derives its income solely from investments in international securities and does not accept contributions from any other source. As of September 2004, the Foundation had assets valued at more than $10 billion and a grant budget of over $500 million per year. An examination of the list of Ford Foundation grant recipients reveals a great deal about the Foundation's values and objectives.

Soon after the 9/11 attacks, for example, the Ford Foundationgave $150,000 to the pro-Castro Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) - a grant formally designated "for racial justice litigation, advocacy, and educational outreach activities related to the detention and racial profiling of Arab Americans and Muslims following the World Trade Center attack." In March 2002, CCR president Michael Ratner placed the blame for anti-American terrorism squarely on the shoulders of the United States. "If the U.S. government truly wants its people to be safer and wants terrorist threats to diminish," he said, "it must make fundamental changes in its foreign policies . . . particularly its unqualified support for Israel, and its embargo of Iraq, its bombing of Afghanistan, and its actions in Saudi Arabia. [These] continue to anger people throughout the region, and to fertilize the ground where terrorists of the future will take root."

Such sentiments are consistent with those of Ford Foundation President Susan Berresford, who, in the wake of 9/11, exhorted Americans to "explore the issues behind the headlines and broaden [their] understanding about the countries from which the attacks came." Characterizing the deadly hijackings as a wake-up call designed to make Americans see the responsibility they themselves bore for the horrors of that day, Berresford said, "For many living and working near ground zero, the 9/11 attacks had the same effect as any terrible shock. They forced us to think more deeply about what we do, how we live our lives, and whether we can do better." Given its ideological compatibility with the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Ford Foundation also gave CCR $250,000 in 2000, and another $75,000 in 2004.

In 2002 the Ford Foundation gave a $100,000 grant to the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) "as core support for activities to ensure the human rights of non-citizens detained in the United States in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001." The NLG, which originated as a Soviet front group, stands in the vanguard of the Open Borders movement and is one of the chief organizations championing the rights of Taliban soldiers held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Also in 2002, Ford gave a $300,000 grant to Fenton Communications "to promote informed voices in response to the September 11th attacks, with an emphasis on the protection of civil liberties and prevention of discrimination." These "informed voices" belonged to members of the leftist anti-war group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, whose coordinator, David Fenton (the head of Fenton Communications and a longtime backer of anti-American causes), handled its media campaign. With the help of Ford's philanthropy, this group has taken its message across the United States and around the world; it is a message that blames American policies for having spawned Islamist terrorism and hostilities in Iraq. Peaceful Tomorrows representatives have spoken at universities, participated in major antiwar marches, and taken to the airwaves to make their case against the Bush administration.

Another noteworthy hallmark of the Ford Foundation's grant philosophy is its pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel bent. For instance, Ford was a major funder of the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa. The conference, which concluded just two days before the 9/11 attacks, and which the United States boycotted in protest, was largely a forum for anti-Semitic and anti-American rhetoric, verbal and physical harassment of Jewish delegates, tirades against the United States and Israel, and declarations equating Zionism with racism.

Ford has also funded the Palestinian Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, which maintains that Israel is a "racist, apartheid state." Other recent Ford grants include: $350,000 (from 2001-2003) to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, which disrupts Israeli Defense Force (IDF) anti-terror activities and is associated with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a radical anti-American and anti-Israel group that similarly disrupts IDF missions and gives material support to Palestinian suicide bombers; $135,000 (in 2001-2002) to the Health, Development, Information and Policy Institute, which advocates the boycotting of Israeli goods; $200,000 (in 2001) to Ittijah, a Haifa-based NGO which, at the aforementioned Durban Conference, played a prominent role in denouncing "Israeli-state racism towards Palestinian citizens" and "the apartheid [which] the State [of Israel] practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip"; $50,000 (in 2000) to LAW, a Jerusalem-based NGO that depicts Israel as an oppressive nation that inflicts human rights violations, "apartheid," "war crimes," and "crimes against humanity" on its Palestinian minority; $550,000 (from 2000-2002) to MIFTAH, a Jerusalem-based NGO whose priorities are to undermine Israel and defend the Palestinian Authority; $680,000 (in 2001-2002) to the New Israel Fund, a Washington-based group that funds numerous organizations which regularly make anti-Semitic comments and false, highly politicized charges against Israel; and $700,000 (from 2000-2002) to the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organization Network (PNGO), consisting of more than 90 Palestinian NGOs. It should be noted that shortly after 9/11, President Bush signed an order prohibiting tax-exempt American organizations (such as the Ford Foundation) from providing any further funding to Palestinian NGOs - because of their suspected links to terrorist groups.

A 1968 Ford Foundation "seed grant" created the radical Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), now the most influential Hispanic advocacy group in the United States. During the past three and half decades, Ford has given more than $25 million to this organization; nearly half of this amount ($11,285,000) was given between 2000 and 2004. MALDEF is a major player in the open bordersmovement, which seeks to liquefy American borders and grant amnesty and full civil rights to all illegal immigrants already in the U.S.

The Ford Foundation has been a longtime, loyal supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), as evidenced by its $7 million grant to the ACLU in 1999. "The ACLU has no better partner and friend than the Ford Foundation," said the ACLU's then-executive director Ira Glasser. "It is fitting that the largest single gift . . . ever to the ACLU, should come from Ford."

The Ford Foundation is a member organization of both the Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG) and the the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG); the latter is a network of more than six-dozen grantmakers dedicated to funding leftwing groups and causes. (For a complete list of IHRFG grantmakers, click here.)

Committed philosophically to the principles of racial, ethnic, sexual orientation and gender-based preferences, the Ford Foundation candidly celebrated its role in helping win the 1993 Supreme Court rulings on affirmative action, which upheld the University of Michigan Law School's race-based admissions system. "These landmark decisions," said the Ford website, "reaffirm the Ford Foundation's values of social justice and bolster continuing work for racial, sexual and economic equality."

The Ford Foundation's values and ideals are reflected unmistakably in its funding priorities. These ideals include the emasculation of homeland security and anti-terrorism measures; the dissolution of American borders; the promotion of mass, unchecked immigration to the United States; the redistribution of wealth; the blaming of America for virtually every conceivable international dispute; the false depiction of Israel as an oppressor state that routinely victimizes its Palestinian minority; the weakening of American military capabilities; and a devotion to the principle of preferences based on race, ethnicity, gender, and a host of other demographic attributes. By using its enormous wealth to fund organizations that promote these ideals, the Ford Foundation plays a major role in shaping American culture and public policy.

faced with massive pressure from Nadler, Jewish organizations and newspapers like the New York Sun

Say what? Massive pressure? From the nudnik Nadler? From the New York Sun? Will they make them feel guilty or something?

ADL still has Ford under a microscope, and has heavily criticized recent actions by the foundation, including its decision to fund a conference on academic boycotts sponsored by the American Association of University Professors in Bellagio, Italy. The conference was eventually canceled.

Oh, that's it. After getting money from Ford, the ADL, and Simon Weisonthal center FORCED the Ford Foundation to back off that wonderful conference....

"Ford," says Anthony Romero of the ACLU, "really stands alone at this point."

That's it. The poor dears. Those poor Ford foundation representatives. Stuck with over 11 billion and all alone in the world. It is obviously the result of some sneaky coniving greedy group. A group that loves money and will sacrifice those poor poor givers of goodness at Ford.

This is the Ford Foundation, not associated in any way with Ford Motor Company today. This article is blatantly trying to make the connection and I find the tactic to be contemptible. The author of this hit piece is no better than the Foundation they are trying to slam.

11
posted on 05/18/2006 1:53:04 PM PDT
by CSM
(Putting government in charge of morality is like putting pedophiles in charge of children.Protagoras)

a quote: In the decades following Ford's death in 1947, what was once a privately-owned business became a corporation owned in large part by the public. Since then, the Ford family and the Ford Motor Company have engaged in numerous projects and endeavors in the public interest, including many that have been supportive of Jewish concerns. Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II, consistently supported Jewish charities and cultural organizations. In 1997, for example, the Ford Motor Company sponsored the first screening of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," commercial-free, on national network television.

12
posted on 05/18/2006 2:18:23 PM PDT
by APRPEH
(You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.)

"This is the Ford Foundation, not associated in any way with Ford Motor Company today. This article is blatantly trying to make the connection and I find the tactic to be contemptible. The author of this hit piece is no better than the Foundation they are trying to slam."

True, but the Foundation was started by the Ford family out of the company's profits. They were very foolish to relinquish control.

Now, the Dow Foundation, on the other hand, is building a minor league baseball park, to help provide activities and attract a team to its hometown - Midland, Michigan.

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...."Iranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadThe Holocaust Chronicle ~

"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."FReeper sgtbono2002"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."FReeper NoachianA student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."The Nature Of Bruce ~

14
posted on 05/18/2006 3:32:49 PM PDT
by Salem
(FREE REPUBLIC - Fighting to win within the Arena of the War of Ideas! So get in the fight!)

I think it is interesting that Aldous Huxley featured Ford in his book Brave New World. I know Ford was a bit of a big brother - to the extent that he nosed into the private lives of his employees. One of those social engineers like that Owens fellow that set up New Harmony.

>>> From Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power 1919-1933 by James Pool and Suzanne Pool (The Dial Press, 1978), pp 111, 129:

"That Henry Ford, the famous automobile manufacturer gave money to the National Socialists directly or indirectly has never been disputed," said Konrad Heiden, one of the first biographers of Hitler.[87] Novelist Upton Sinclair wrote in The Flivver King, a book about Ford, that the Nazis got forty-thousand dollars from Ford to reprint anti-Jewish pamphlets in German translations, and that an additional $300,00 was later sent to Hitler through a grandson of the ex-Kaiser who acted as an intermediary.[88] The US Ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd, said in an interview that "certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy."[89] At the time of Dodd's criticisms, the general public was aware that he was speaking of Ford because the press made a direct association between Dodd's statements and other reports of Ford's anti-Semitism.

.... Henry Ford's reward from Hitler finally came in July 1938, when on his seventy-fifth birthday he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle. Ford was the first American and the fourth person in the world to receive this medal, which was the highest decoration that could be given to any non-German citizen. Benito Mussolini, another of Hitler's financiers, had been decorated with the same honor earlier that year.[128]

The presentation was made in Ford's Dearborn office by the German Counsul on Cleveland, Karl Kapp, and Consul Fritz Hailer of Detroit. Kapp placed the silk red sash over Ford's right shoulder. The sash was worn in a diagonal line from the right shoulder to the left hip where it was clasped with a gold and white cross. Kapp then pinned a large, shining star-shaped medal of Ford's white suit. The decoration was given "in recognition of [Ford's] pioneering in making motor cars available for the masses." Hitler's personal congratulatory message accompanied the award.[129]

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